Strum, WI



 


Notes:
Strum, Wisconsin

City/Town : Latitude: 44.5496859, Longitude: -91.3926578


Media

Photos
The Original Strum Seven Man Bicycle
The Original Strum Seven Man Bicycle
LEFT TO RIGHT:
Bud Brion, Roy Matson, Dick Ellifson, Doug Runkel, Java Bergerson, Arnold Gunderson, Bill Amundson

This is the famous SEVEN MAN BICYCLE......a major attraction at community parades around the Strum area and west central Wisconsin. A Strum product! Built in Strum by Jewel Berge, our Blacksmith, and crew.

This bicycle also appeared in the Fall 1964 Homecoming parade at the University of Minnesota. I was a student and resident of Frontier Hall Dormitory. I convinced my father to let me bring it to Minneapolis, that I had the guys in the dorm that could ride and manipulate this monster of a bike. Maybe a week before homecoming my friends and I and a Corvair with hitch made the trip to Strum, hooked up the bike and specially built trailer and made the trip back to Minneapolis. The stares along the way through Eleva, Mondovi, Durand, Prescott and then through the St. Paul-Minneapolis Metro area on U.S. Hiway 10........the stares were unreal!

Once we found a parking place for the bike back of the dorm, it was the local attraction around the dorm and Minneapolis campus for days. And then we practiced and the attraction grew. The bell, the air horn fed by that tank on the back of the bike.. A hit as you can imagine. .

This bike and our 7 guys, me being one, were the Frontier Hall entry in the Homecoming Parade. The parade angled down University Avenue on the Minneapolis Campus.....and we snaked this bike along the way, working hard to keep the back wheel on the center line and veering left and right with the front. It worked. We won first prize for all dormitory entries in the parade..........and the stares and hoots never quit!

What a great idea my fellow Strumites (or is it Strummers) had for promoting Steam Engine Days....and just about anything! Put a candidate for local or state office on something like this and the voters would never forget the person, just like the memory no doubt caused many a parade goer to never forget this entry in the parade and the NEED to get to Strum on Steam Engine Days each year.

NOTE: my father, Roy Matson is the second man from the left in this picture. All of these men are well known in the Strum area. In this picture, they obviously are riding in a parade (probably other than Strum) to promote the upcoming Steam Engine Days probably during the mid to late 1960's.

Written by Fred Matson
Threshing on the Pete Christianson Farm >>> about 1910.
Threshing on the Pete Christianson Farm >>> about 1910.
This is a 100 year old picture of threshing on the Pete Christianson Farm in 1910. The boy on the canopy is William Christianson. Walt Enger on the Engine with oil can. Hans Enger at the throttle. There would be threshing crews made up of farmers in the area that would go from farm to farm at harvest time. The wives would cook prepare lunch (two times a day) and dinner at noon. Food was excellent.
Threshing on the Pete Christianson Farm in 1910
Threshing on the Pete Christianson Farm in 1910
This is a 100 year old picture of threshing on the Pete Christianson Farm in 1910. The boy on the canopy is William Christianson. Walt Enger on the Engine with oil can. Hans Enger at the throttle. There would be threshing crews made up of farmers in the area that would go from farm to farm at harvest time. The wives would cook prepare lunch (two times a day) and dinner at noon. Food was excellent.
Strand Hardware Store
Strand Hardware Store
E. E. Strand Proprietor (right) & Roy Matson, Frequent Visitor
December 26, 1969

As we look at this picture we can see how the two seem to be talking about and focusing on that old National cash register. Note all the nuts and bolts options in the background. There were just as many on all the other walls and twice as much stuff in the back room. If you couldn't find what you needed here or at the other hardware store in town, further south on 5th Avenue, it probably didn't exist.

Strand Hardware was a common gathering point for people of all kinds in Strum. If you didn't need a bolt or nut or two and were in need of conversation that need could also be met. Roy Matson, my father, frequently took advantage of the pot belly stove talks. Elvin Strand is a brother of my great aunt Ruth (Garson) Strand's husband, Genhard. And anyone that grew up in or knows Strum also knows that Genhard was the local mortician, among other things. Strand Hardware was in the family for years beginning with Elvin and Genhard's dad, H. H. Strand.

In the late 1940s and 1950s when I was growing up in Strum the telephone office was two doors south of Strand Hardware with the post office in between, I believe. I clearly recall the day a Minneapolis business customer called our Millwork business on the east edge of town wanting to reach dad. The man was told that Roy wasn't there but was somewhere in town. Our local telephone operator was on the ball, intervened with the call, as you could and did even in those days, and promptly announced that she would conduct a community wide search for Mr. Matson. "Please hold". Within minutes and a few well placed local calls from the operator, whose name I shall withhold but who we all know was one or the other, Roy was found at Strand Hardware and connected to the totally astonished man from Minneapolis. That was customer service! The Strum telephone operator knew that Roy was probably at the Hardware store or a restaurant if he wasn't at the mill.

Fred Matson

Birth

Matches 1 to 37 of 37

   Last Name, Given Name(s)    Birth    Person ID 
1 Amundson Milla  27 Jun 1870Strum, WI I822
2 Halverson Albert  05 Jul 1871Strum, WI I225
3 Christianson Oluff  1873Strum, WI I188
4 Amundson Kaja  09 May 1873Strum, WI I823
5 Halverson Morris  14 May 1873Strum, WI I226
6 Amundson Tilla  01 Jul 1876Strum, WI I2348
7 Halverson Hannah  24 Nov 1877Strum, WI I227
8 Nelson Anton  29 Mar 1882Strum, WI I1751
9 Nelson Tilla  12 Jan 1885Strum, WI I1752
10 Amundson Elmer Julius  16 Aug 1885Strum, WI I1835
11 Amundson Thea Elvina  04 Jul 1887Strum, WI I1836
12 Nelson Oscar  2 Dec 1887Strum, WI I1753
13 Amundson Louise Caroline Christiana  08 Feb 1890Strum, WI I1837
14 Christianson Palmer  1891Strum, WI I173
15 Amundson Joseph Edwin  29 Dec 1891Strum, WI I1838
16 Christianson Mathilda  Apr 1892Strum, WI I174
17 Amundson Kaja  03 Jan 1894Strum, WI I2350
18 Christianson Louise  07 Mar 1894Strum, WI I175
19 Nelson Clara  28 Feb 1895Strum, WI I1755
20 Christianson Mollie  Jun 1896Strum, WI I176
21 Amundson Hannah  08 Jul 1896Strum, WI I2349
22 Nelson Hannah  23 Feb 1898Strum, WI I1756
23 Christianson Marshall  Mar 1898Strum, WI I177
24 Amundson Wilhelm  19 May 1898Strum, WI I1841
25 Christianson Hilda  Mar 1900Strum, WI I178
26 Christianson Oluf  1902Strum, WI I121
27 Christianson William  16 Apr 1902Strum, WI I4
28 Christianson Joseph  1903Strum, WI I3036
29 Christianson Louis  1905Strum, WI I179
30 Christianson Elmer  1907Strum, WI I180
31 Christianson Glorence  1909Strum, WI I3184
32 Christianson Phillip  1910Strum, WI I182
33 Christianson Palma  2 May 1911Strum, WI I3186
34 Christianson Vernie  28 Aug 1913Strum, WI I181
35 Christianson Leonard  7 Jul 1920Strum, WI I3144
36 Semingson D.   I600
37 Semingson P.   I3138

Christened

Matches 1 to 8 of 8

   Last Name, Given Name(s)    Christened    Person ID 
1 Amundson Milla  Jul 1870Strum, WI I822
2 Nelson Anton  1882Strum, WI I1751
3 Nelson Tilla  1887Strum, WI I1752
4 Nelson Oscar  1888Strum, WI I1753
5 Nelson Emil  1 Apr 1891Strum, WI I1754
6 Nelson Clara  1 Apr 1895Strum, WI I1755
7 Nelson Hannah  1898Strum, WI I1756
8 Christianson W.O.   I1

Died

Matches 1 to 29 of 29

   Last Name, Given Name(s)    Died    Person ID 
1 Amundson Kaja  03 Oct 1905Strum, WI I2350
2 Halverson Ole  16 0ct 1910Strum, WI I219
3 Amundson Louise Caroline Christiana  18 Jan 1921Strum, WI I1837
4 Amundson Joseph Edwin  22 Mar 1927Strum, WI I1838
5 Amundson Tilla  13 Mar 1937Strum, WI I2348
6 Halverson Hermine  02 Aug 1938Strum, WI I222
7 Amundson Wilhelm  06 Dec 1938Strum, WI I1841
8 Christianson Mollie  1941Strum, WI I176
9 Langlo Karen Julianne  1941Strum, WI I120
10 Amundson Anne  10 Dec 1944Strum, WI I838
11 Christianson Peter  08 Jul 1945Strum, WI I92
12 Halverson Ole  21 Dec 1945Strum, WI I224
13 Amundson Christian  09 Feb 1949Strum, WI I821
14 Langlo Anne Gurina  25 May 1949Strum, WI I93
15 Eide Caroline  09 Sep 1952Strum, WI I1834
16 Halverson Martha  19 Dec 1954Strum, WI I223
17 Amundson Milla  14 Aug 1955Strum, WI I822
18 Amundson Elmer Julius  06 Jun 1970Strum, WI I1835
19 Bergerson Odell  01 Dec 1972Strum, WI I243
20 Christianson William  05 Mar 1978Strum, WI I4
21 Amundson Thea Elvina  01 Jan 1980Strum, WI I1836
22 Skoyen Clara  09 Jul 1982Strum, WI I254
23 Amundson Hannah  01 Mar 1984Strum, WI I2349
24 Christianson Louis  1986Strum, WI I179
25 Olson Spencer  5 Sep 1991Strum, WI I801
26 Johnson Alma  2 Mar 2005Strum, WI I1579
27 Hoff Esther  2 Mar 2012Strum, WI I3151
28 Christianson Vernie  25 Jun 2013Strum, WI I181
29 Halverson Dennis Bert  26 Jan 2016Strum, WI I1581

Buried

Matches 1 to 7 of 7

   Last Name, Given Name(s)    Buried    Person ID 
1 Christianson Louise  Strum, Wi I175
2 Christopherson Carl  Strum, WI I190
3 Christianson Peter  08 May 1949Strum, WI I6
4 Christianson William  08 Mar 1978Strum, WI I4
5 Christopherson Olga  20 Oct 1988Strum, WI I5
6 Hoff Esther  19 Mar 2012Strum, WI I3151
7 Christianson Vernie  1 Jul 2013Strum, WI I181

Married

Matches 1 to 6 of 6

   Family    Married    Family ID 
1 Christianson / Langlo  04 Nov 1890Strum, WI F33
2 Christianson / Langlo   F941
3 Bergerson / Spangberg  1906Strum, WI F69
4 Christianson / Christopherson  3 Jun 1931Strum, WI F2
5 Swaim / Keeler   F910
6 Skovbroten / Semingson   F50